In this way, the Network against Repression and for Solidarity (RvsR) organized the adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle and the students of the Escuelita Zapatista as well as social and political organizations to participate in a global day of action, “THE ZAPATISTAS ARE NOT ALONE!” The same actionw as organized to carry out decentralized actions between 12 and 19 July 2015, and actions were taken in Guadalajara, Mexico City, and Tampico. Whatever action that may be taken can be communicated to the following e-mail addresses: comunicacion@redcontralarepresion.org and redcontralarepresion@gmail.com.

It should be mentioned that on 19 July, elections will be held for the mayorships of Chiapas. The RvsR has declared itself on alert for whatever act of provocation that could take place within the electoral context that could in turn “worsen the climate of harassment against the Zapatista communities.”

On 4 July, the Tseltal families from Banavil, Tenejapa municipality, completed 3 years and 7 months “since the armed aggression that took place on 4 December 2011,” which left several families displaced, and Alonso Lopéz Luna disappeared.

The families share that, to date, “the government has done nothing. To date, we continue displaced, and we have not been able to return to our lands where our homes are, and we continue living in inhuman conditions.” Further, “the Mexican State is protecting the PRI members who displaced us from Banavil and disappeared our father Alonso Lopez Luna.”

In light of this failure of justice, the families have convened to ‘demand justice, truth, and peace for those other indigenous peoples who have been forcibly disappeared in Chiapas, particularly in the cases of Primero de Agosto, Las Margaritas.” They also expressed their solidarity with Manuel López Pérez, the member from the Las Abejas Civil Society who was killed on 23 June, as well as with the Simojovel municipality amidst the “high-risk situation and […] the threats against our brothers from the Believing People and the priest Marcelo Pérez Pérez.”

The displaced closed their denunciation by noting that “this is what is happening in our communities in other communities and municipalities of Chiapas, because in Chiapas there is no justice. The law is made only for the rich against the poor.” They hold the three levels of the Mexican government repsonsible “for our forcible displacement and the forcible disappearance of Alonso Lopez Luna.”

The ejidatarios from Tila, adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, denounced that on 20 June, groups pertaining to the Green Ecologist Party (PVEM) and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had a confrontation, given that members of the PVEM “blockaded the crossroads of Jolpokitioc and Yajalón, using all the trucks from the City Hall”on the orders of the PVEM candidate, Edgar Leopoldo Gómez Gutiérrez, with the participation of masked youth who created “social intimidation because they have been seen on the paths near the ejido,” as the public denunciation noted.

Furthermore, on 6 July, the ejidatarios reported that the PRI candidate, Eliseo Trinidad Trujillo, was attacked with a firearms, provoking the arrival of eight cars “full of masked men carrying sticks, rocks, and firearms, as guided by the municipal police director, Jorge Antonio Decelis Guillén, the son of the cacique Gustavo Decelis.” “All of this was taking place within our ejido due to the action of the political parties and their elections, which always end in mutual death, because it is a choice between criminals […]. We want to say that in our Ch’ol indigenous people settled on ejidal land, we have spent 72 years confronting attacks on our land and territory, and it is not a legal space for political parties to come to fight, because the ejido is protected by a presidential resolution from 30 July 1934, published in the Official Diary of the Federation on 16 October of the same year,” they added in their denunciation.

State media mentioned that the PRI candidate had submitted a complaint before the State Attorney General’s Office (PGJE). Trinidad Trujillo was injured, but a youth who was accompanying him on tour was injured in the head. Official sources also reported that they had received reports that three youth were injured by gunfire in the Nueva Esperanza neighborhood, being three PVEM militants who were presumably attacked by PRI members.

In an Urgent Action published by the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casa Center for Human Rights (Frayba) on 30 June, the Center expressed its concern “for the new attacks and death-threats against support-bases that comprise the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (BAEZLN) in the communities of El Rosario, belonging to the Rebel Zapatista Autonomous Municipality (MAREZ) of San Manuel; and Nuevo Paraíso, MAREZ Francisco Villa (official municipality of Ocosingo), who pertain to the ‘Path of the Future’ Good-Government Council (JBG), located in the ‘Toward a New Dawn’ Caracol III of La Garrucha in the Tseltal Jungle Zone of Chiapas. Due to the omission of the municipal and state governments to attend to the problem and to take up their responsibilities, there exist risks to the life, integrity, and personal security of BAEZLN.”

On 10 May, according to information published by the “Path of the Future” JBG, a group of 28 persons from the Pojcol ejido, Chiquinival neighborhood (official municipality of Chilón), together with another group of 21 people from El Rosario harassed and attacked BAEZLN from this same Zapatista Autonomous Community. That same afternoon, Andrés López Vázquez fired four times at a child of 13 years of age, being the daughter of a BAEZLN. On 14 May 2015, Frayba responded by sending notice to the governments of Chiapas regarding the armed attacks.

On 24 June, members of the Pojcol and El Rosario groups who were carrying firearms and accompanied by Guadalupe Flores, the presumed ex-owner of recovered lands, and an engineer went to measure lands belonging to the BAEZLN. They fired ten times into the air, forcibly entered two BAEZLN homes, and robbed belongings as well roof of one of the domiciles, according to an EZLN communique published on 25 June.

Frayba calls for national and international solidarity to express support for the threatened BAEZLN.

In a communique published on 23 June, the residents of the Primero de Agosto community denounced the 120 days of forcible displacement experienced by the “17 Tojolabal families because of [the actions of] ejidatarios from Miguel Hidalgo who pertain to the CIOAC-Historical organization, led by Luis Hernández Cruz,” and it adds that Elvira Méndez Pérez, who just gave birth, “is suffering greatly because of the cold and the rain, as she lacks proper shelter in which her child can grow up happily.”

In their denunciation, the displaced describe “how for the last 4 months we are awakened by raindrops that penetrate the plastic tarps which we use to cover ourselves at night. We awaken with our clothes wet and cold due to the humidity of the land on which we live, as it is the time of rain, and the government has done nothing […]. Look at where we are displaced, and you will see the face of impunity and the reality of indigenous peoples.”

Despite this suffering and the conditions in which the displaced live, the families assure that they continue “to struggle for our land, because it is the only resource we have. We are not asleep in the struggle for our land, which continues, and will live on […]. We will not become tired of denouncing until the government observes its promises. We will not tire of denouncing until there is justice, because we are in favor of justice and peace. As our ancestors say, ‘ts omanotik b’a sk’ulajel jsak’aniltik.’ That is to say, together we build life.”

The Primero de Agosto community continues to demand that the three levels of government guarantee the proper conditions for return, “because there is where our happy Iives take place.” Furthermore, they call on the government to observe the accord that was signed on 25 February 2015, which stipulates that the state government commit itself to redistributing lands equally.

In a communique from 25 June, Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) made known the facts of a new attack on Zapatistas on recuperated lands in the El Rosario community, which belongs to the autonomous municipality of San Manuel. The Subcomandante also includes the denunciation made by the La Garrucha Good-Government Council (JBG) regarding the events.

The “Path to the Future” JBG explains that 28 “paramilitaries” from the Chiquinibal neighborhood of the Pojkol ejido arrived on 24 June to El Rosario, 8 of them openly carrying firearms. According to the JBG, in this community there live 21 “paramilitaries” who occupy lands recovered by the EZLN in 1994. According to the JGB, there was a meeting between these paramilitaries with an engineer and Guadalupe Flores, the owner of the lands in question before the 1994 uprising. The JBG claims that this group carried out measurements of the lands, supposedly to plan the subsequent construction of a church and homes. It adds that 10 gunshots were fired behind the home of a Zapatista support-base (BAEZLN) to intimidate the population, and that the aggressors entered two other homes and destroyed yet another, robbing the belongings of its inhabitants: animals, construction materials, tools, food, and cash. The JBG concludes that the engineer and the landowner are advisors to the paramilitary group.

It should be recalled that the La Garrucha JBG had in August 2014 denounced actions taken by this same group, including the killing of a stud bull, the destruction of homes and a collective store, robbery, the defoliation with pesticides of common grazing lands, shooting of live ammunition, and the writing of “Pojkol territory” on burned-out homes. In May 2015, the JBG denounced that one of them shot at a BAEZLN girl.

The JBG affirms that these events are a provocation which form part of the government’s counter-insurgent strategy. “We say clearly that we will not remain with our arms crossed while our comrades are attacked by any of the means that the bad government uses against us. We have said clearly that we will defend our lands, because on them were we born, from them we live, and on them we will die, regardless of the costs.”

The JBG holds the federal, state, and municipal governments responsible for any acts that might follow, and it calls on the public to remain attentive.

On 20 June 2015, Minerva Guadalupe Pérez Torres would have had her thirty-eighth birthday. That same day in 1996, she was “headed to the Masojá Shucjá community, Tila municipality, Chiapas, to visit her ill father. On her route, in the Miguel Alemán community, she was intercepted by members of the ‘Development, Peace, and Justice’ paramilitary group, who kidnapped her, tortured her sexually and otherwise for three days, and then forcibly disappeared her. Nearly two decades after, her whereabouts are entirely unknown,” indicates the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Center for Human Rights (CDHFBLC). Beyond this, a public bulletin reported that the relatives of Minerva and other forcibly disappeared and extrajudicially executed persons are receiving notes “to confront their aggressors, the paramilitary leaders of Development, Peace, and Justice: Diego Vázquez Pérez, Sabelino Torres Martínez, Marcos Albino, and Samuel Sánchez, who are ordered to appear before a judge or face a fine of $2,048 [Mexican pesos] if they fail to comply.”

This aforementioned group was trained and protected by the State Police and the Mexican Army in the 1990s as a counter-insurgency weapon, as demonstrated in the Chiapas Campaign Plan 94. The CDHFBLC documented that Development, Peace, and Justice carried out 85 executions, 37 forcible disappearances, and forcibly displaced more than 4,500 people.